All Write With Eddus: DON’T

Don’t write. Don’t take your thoughts and place them on paper. Don’t use words to make a thin mesh of reality in yours and someone else’s mind. Don’t imagine. Don’t be taken away on a joke of marvellous thought. Don’t play. Don’t practice. Don’t sing on the page. Don’t dance your hand across it holding a pen. Just don’t.

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This time I want you to write about something but only using negatives. Exploring what something isn’t, wasn’t, won’t or will never be is a fun way of tricking yourself into seeing it differently. A teapot isn’t a lamp post. But what if it was?

In Philosophy this is generally called Via Negativa (the negative route), a way of grasping a concept [usually GOD] by saying everything it ISN’T. I know this is a huge simplification so please do not contact me wishing to get into a philosophical debate about the use of via Negativa in theological debate, my degree in Philosophy means I am absolutely sick of debating. I now believe wholly that there are no absolutes.

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Start all your sentences with a negative statement and see where it gets you (you won’t be surprised):